Advertising a Business for Sale

Selling a business is not entirely similar to selling real estate, unless the business establishment is also up for sale. There are additional considerations and requirements that come with selling a business. Business owners and operators must keep those in mind if they desire to complete the sale successfully. Furthermore, you should ensure a smooth transition within the company after the sale to ensure stability and continued success of the business after the new owners take over.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Trade or business magazines
• Classified ads
• Business broker or agency
• Business records
• Financial statements

1. Talk with your partners or investors first, if you have any. There should be a unanimous agreement to sell the business.

2. Consult a lawyer and accountant to help with the legal and accounting procedures.

3. Keep the sale quiet. By keeping the sale in secrecy from your employees until it is close to a definitive sale, you prevent key employees from panicking and leaving for other jobs. Until your sale is final, you should ensure that the workforce is at ease to avoid disruption of work and not to hamper your business daily activities and earnings. Oftentimes new owners would rather keep the same employees because they already know how to do their work; therefore, it saves time and money when it comes to hiring and training new employees by keeping the ones that you have.

4. Consult or hire the services of a business broker. The broker handles the advertisement of the sale your business so that you can concentrate on running your business until the sale is over. The broker also receives the calls of inquiries and answers them in a timely manner. The business broker assists in getting offers and helps finalize the sale.

5. Publish a different contact number and address for your business to use for your advertisement. This filters calls to your business, which can get disruptive. Doing so keeps the sale low key.

6. Advertise in business classified ads, trade magazines, business opportunity newsletters and publications.

7. Include information, financial or otherwise, in your advertisement. Provide information about cash flow and requirements for initial investment, especially if you are selling a franchise.

8. Advertise in websites specializing in businesses and trade opportunities.

9. Do not put up a sign on your business property; otherwise, you will get people who are just curious and not serious about making an offer. Moreover, this defeats the purpose of keeping it low key or in secrecy.

10. Prepare your business records and annual reports, including your financial statements and tax records. Investors who are serious about buying your business will look at those before making any offer.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep employees calm if they find out about your advertisement. Provide assurances that you can keep.
• Do not falsify your business documents to show bloated income. There are legal consequences if found guilty.
• Avoid keeping promises to employees that you cannot keep. It will create more disruptions when the truth finally comes out.